


Ancient and Disreputable Customs

by ineptshieldmaid



Category: Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Character of Color, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Gen, POV Female Character, POV Multiple, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineptshieldmaid/pseuds/ineptshieldmaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuki had envied her elder sister Ayuko her wedding festival - three weeks of being pampered and fussed over, and the same again with her new husband! She had known, of course, that when she followed Shinko to Tortall, her life would look nothing like those of her kinswomen.</p><p>She had, as it happened, reckoned without Baronness Ilane of Mindelan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ancient and Disreputable Customs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disco_vendetta (brinn)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinn/gifts).



> Thanks to my yuletide filter and esp. to T. for hand-holding at the last push.

The Yamani people had many ancient and respected customs pertaining to the marriage of a noble daughter. By rights the bride ought to spend at least a week in seclusion with her mother, sisters, and female relatives before being escorted to her new husband’s family’s home by her father and brothers.

This was not, an option for Yuki - her mother and her second brother had arrived from the Isles some months ago, at Shinko’s invitation, but they hardly had anywhere to withdraw. Mama had been whisked up by Queen Thayet and Duchess Willima, anyway, and Doshu, who had not long finished his clerical training, spent most of the summer in Persepolis, learning from the Bazhir shamans.

Yuki had envied her elder sister Ayuko her wedding festival - three weeks of being pampered and fussed over, and the same again with her new husband! She had known, of course, that when she followed Shinko to Tortall, her life would look nothing like those of her kinswomen.

She had, as it happened, reckoned without Baronness Ilane of Mindelan.

* * *

‘Mindelan.’ Kel stiffened a little in her seat. Somewhere along the line, she’d grown used to Lord Wyldon addressing her as if he thought her at least a passable knight, despite the continuing disappointment of her not having been born a boy. Today she heard the ghost of a much younger Neal in her head, demanding to know who put prickle-pears in the Stump’s breeches that morning. ‘When did you plan on telling me that you intend to retire to Corus for young Queenscove’s wedding?’

‘I didn’t, sir,’ she said, keeping her voice cool. The injustice of it stung. With Neal absent from New Hope, and Merric not long back in the saddle after a nasty axe wound to the leg, she could hardly take time off to go gallivanting about and having fun in Corus. Never mind that it was only her best friend and one of her oldest playmates getting married. To each other. After last fall’s desertion escapade, she could hardly push Lord Wyldon for any favours.

Lord Wyldon stared across his desk at her, and then sighed, and pushed a piece of parchment in her direction. Kel’s heart sank: the Mindelan seal was clear enough from a distance, and, as she picked it up, her mother’s neat hand was distinctive. She scanned the document quickly: her father respectfully requests, etc etc, Kel’s presence in Corus for four weeks, etc etc.

‘My Lord,’ Kel said, mind racing. Mama would never have done this to Anders, she thought, and then folded up her resentment to deal with later. ‘I assure you, I knew nothing of this. I understand - I couldn’t possibly -’

‘And more to the point,’ Wyldon interrupted, and there was the faintest hint of a smile on his face, ‘you’re not afraid to speak to me, or indeed, to defy me if you so choose, Mindelan.’

‘No, sir.’

‘You expect I will inform your mother we cannot possibly spare you.’ _Mother_ , Kel thought, although Baron Piers’ signature lay at the bottom of the letter. Kel said nothing: there didn’t seem to be any point. ‘I hadn’t thought avoidance was your style,’ Wyldon added, and if Kel didn’t know better, she’d have said he sounded almost fatherly. Stern; but no doubt he was as stern a father as a training master. ‘I confess myself disappointed.’

‘Sir?’

‘I assume it is a marriage of your own you wish to avoid,’ Wyldon said, as if this were the most logical suggestion in the world. He looked down at the desktop for a moment. ‘I never expected to make this speech, Lady Knight, but know this: if your husband’s kin will allow it, there will always be a place for you in this man’s army.’

‘ _What_?’ Kel spluttered, losing her calm somewhere between the shock of the word ‘marriage’ and the sheer extraordinariness of Wyldon’s latest statement. ‘My lord, no!’ She gathered herself together. ‘I do not know why my mother wrote to you, sir, but I assure you, I am not betrothed.’

‘Hmph.’ Wyldon put on what Neal would call his most Stump-like expression. ‘Well. I couldn’t gainsay Baroness Illane, and besides,’ he picked up another piece of parchment, ‘it came with an endorsement from the Queen herself. Apparently your presence is required as part of the bridal celebrations for Queenscove’s fiancée.’’

* * *

‘Remind me again why we aren’t safely locked up in our nice, cold northern fortresses right now?’

‘Our fortresses?’ Buri arched one eyebrow at her husband, and turned her back to him. ‘Fasten this blasted dress, would you? And,’ she added, as Raoul began lacing up her bodice, ‘it’s not all that cold yet. It’s barely September.’

‘My fortresses, if you insist,’ Raoul grumbled, yanking the laces a little more sharply than strictly necessary. ‘You must admit, though, they are very nice fortresses. Very... quiet.’

‘Except when the Scanrans come to visit,’ Buri agreed. Raoul made a noncommital noise, as if Scanrans were nothing much to worry about, particularly not in comparison to elaborate pre-nuptial parties. Privately, Buri agreed.

‘Let’s go face our doom, then,’ she said, extending her arm to her husband. A short scuffle ensued, beginning with Raoul endeavouring to settle _her_ hand upon _his_ arm, and ending with Raoul pressing her up against the closed door.

‘We’ll be late,’ Raoul mumbled, at about the point when Buri’s hands had snuck up under his tunic.

‘Sod them all.’

* * *

Dinner parties were not, strictly speaking, included in the pre-nuptial part of a Yamani wedding. For one thing, tradition required that the bride be isolated from adult men, aside from servants.

‘Well, we’re not exactly Yamani,’ Illane had said, brushing over both Piers’ concerns and his offer to remove himself from the premises for a week. Then she’d sent out invitations to a select group of, oh, fifty or sixty friends and acquaintances, and Piers had stomped about the house threatening to spend a week camping in the Royal Forest.

The Princess could not take a whole week away from the court, of course, and nor could many of the other invitees. Even Keladry, who had arrived a scant few days before Illane whisked young Yukimi away from the palace, had annexed a section of her father’s writing desk, and covered it with bits of paper and spent a few hours every day since then muttering about supplies, winter grain stores, and the like.

The guests spilled from dining room into sitting room, Yukimi laughing - more than a little bit tipsy, if Illane was any judge - and hanging off the arm of Uline haMinch, who deftly manoeuvred both the intoxicated bride and a large plate of sugar fancies which really ought to be the responsibility of the servants.

‘Really,’ Yuki insisted, as Uline pushed her into a convenient chair. ‘The Carthaki ambassador’s daughter taught me. You need a lemon, and some salt...’

‘And agave spirits,’ Uline said, accepting the glass of water Illane handed her, and carefully supervising Yuki as she drank it. ‘Which we don’t have.’

‘Actually,’ said a quiet voice, over Illane’s shoulder, ‘I have several bottles of fine distilled agave in my quarters at the palace.’ She turned, to the familiar crinkle-eyed face of Baird of Queenscove. ‘Shall I send for them?’

‘Please don’t,’ Illane said, edging him away from his son’s tipsy fiancée.

‘What happened to my lord of Goldenlake?’ Baird asked her, as they dodged what looked like an impromptu lesson in folk-dancing, conducted by Illane’s scatter-brained daughter-in-law Vorinna and Veralidaine the Wildmage, to come to a rest at the library door.

‘Not in here?’ She cocked her head toward the library. Baird shook his head. ‘He wasn’t at dinner, either. I’ll send a message to him in the morning. He owes me a game of checkers.’

‘Tell him if he doesn’t turn up here tomorrow, I’ll invite both him and his grandmother to take high tea with me.’

‘You’re a cruel woman, Illane of Mindelan,’ Baird told her seriously. ‘Dance with me?’

* * *

‘What happened to Neal?’ Kel caught Uline of Hannalof - no, haMinch now, wasn’t it? - by one sleeve as the older girl brushed past her.

‘How should I know,’ Uline asked. ‘You’re his commanding officer, aren’t you?’

‘Oh, don’t rub it in,’ Kel retorted. Uline snickered a little at her. ‘He was here at dinner!’

‘Well, maybe he’s off doing - man things,’ Uline said, with a wave of her hand.

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ Kel muttered. ‘I haven’t seen Yuki lately, have you?’

‘She’s - oh.’ Uline noticed the empty chair and her face took on a comically dismayed cast. ‘Oh, no.’

‘They can’t have got far, can they?’ Kel said, somewhat hopelessly.

‘I really _don’t_ want to think about how far they might get,’ Uline assured her. ‘What happened to Lady Haname?’ The Princess’ older lady-in-waiting had been unofficially Yuki’s chaperone since Shinko had been effectively absorbed into Queen Thayet’s circle.

‘In the library,’ Kel said. ‘With Yuki’s Mama.’

‘Oh.’ Uline bit her lip for a moment. ‘We could hope no one notices?’

Kel looked around at what had become a decidedly dishevelled gathering. ‘You know, that might be the wisest course of action.’

‘No one the wiser, no harm done,’ Uline said, brightly.

‘I’m really very glad I took my shield,’ Kel said, seriously. ‘All sorts of... things are simpler.’ She blinked, and thought, _this is why I don’t drink spirits_ , but too late now. Uline’s eyes had lit up, in a way which Kel had learned - from Yuki, no less - meant gossip, and no way out of it.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the palace...

Neal turned around, closing his father’s liquor cabinet. He placed a dark bottle on the table in front of her. ‘Yuki, my darling, light of my life: is it too late to elope?’

Magically-preserved limes had been Numair’s idea of a thoughtful wedding gift. Limes had unusual magical properties, especially when combined with alcohol.

‘Yes,’ Yuki said, serenely, selecting a wedge of lime. ‘Now, pass me the salt.’


End file.
